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Mostly Cloudy A push for pedestrian safety in Lynbrook
Four years after Vision Long Island completed a “walkability audit” in Lynbrook that sought to improve pedestrian and motorist safety, there is an effort to persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to fund such projects in her 2022-23 budget.
Vision Long Island’s mission is to promote livable, economically sustainable, and environmentally responsible growth across Long Island. Its executive director, Eric Alexander, hosted a community forum on March 25 at Molloy College’s Suffolk Center in Farmingdale. An audience of more than 100 elected officials and community members shared ideas about how to make several Nassau County communities, including Lynbrook, safer.
Alexander said that Hochul will include a five-year transportation capital plan in her 2022-23 spending plan, and that he believes that billions of dollars could be allocated to improve safety for motorists and pedestrians statewide.
“We’re feeling that for the first time in a long time, we can dust off some of these plans from a couple of years ago and go back to them,” Alexander explained, “while recognizing that pedestrian issues are similar to back then, so let’s get these proposals.”
In 2018, Lynbrook was chosen as a study area for a “walking audit,” along with Rockville Centre, Freeport and Hicksville. The audits were based on data collected by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and mapped locations of car crashes involving walkers and bike riders. It sought to identify “hot spots” that needed improvements to make them safer. The audit was a partnership between Vision Long Island and the AARP, which had representatives walk through each community to study roads and areas that have recorded a high number of crashes.
The 2018 probe focused on main thoroughfares in Lynbrook’s downtown area, including Merrick Road, Sunrise Highway, Atlantic Avenue and Broadway. The group walked south from the Lynbrook Long Island Rail Road station along Broadway toward Sunrise Highway.
The study found needs for improvements in various areas, and called for adding medians to several roads, countdown timers at the intersections of Merrick, Broadway and Atlantic, wider sidewalks on Merrick and Blake Avenue and striped crosswalks at the intersection of Columbus Drive and Langdon Place. While the village was found to be safe overall for pedestrians crossing streets, the report said that improvements at crosswalks and intersections were needed for disabled people or those who use strollers, and that there was a need for curb extensions, medians and countdown timers at certain streets.
“We are going to be calling for funding for these projects to get done,” Alexander said. “We laid groundwork in identifying the problems, now it’s about getting these projects underway.”
Alexander said he was not certain about how long it might take to get the projects underway or when a decision would be made. He noted, however, that there is about $32 billion available through funds set aside in the transportation budget over the years for fixes. Hochul did not present her finalized budget by the April 1 deadline, and officials continued to debate several major items in the proposed $216.3 billion spending plan as the Herald went to press.
Alexander said Sunrise Highway was a major focus on many of Vision Long Island’s past studies since it travels through several villages and towns, and the growing popularity of people walking and biking has led to a greater need for safety.
Mayor Alan Beach said that there are other areas of focus he believed Vision Long Island should have examined. He noted that with the $95 million, 201-unit apartment complex planned for the site of the vacant former Mangrove Feather factory building, an influx of residents, commuters and pedestrians will move to the village in the coming years.
The project, which is slated to begin later this spring and could take 18 months to two years to complete, is being developed by the Garden City-based Breslin Realty. Beach said Breslin hired the firm VHB to conduct a traffic study near the apartment site, which they completed last May. The firm found that the traffic lights near the facility will need to be adjusted and better synchronized.
Beach added that he has been concerned about Atlantic Avenue for several years, because it is a narrow, one-way street that leads to Broadway, but many people use it as a two-lane road, which he called dangerous. He said he has requested that Nassau County officials complete a traffic study in the village, but it has not happened yet.
“We have a couple of big issues in Lynbrook,” Beach said. “I think we need an updated traffic study on the area because there’s a lot of changes that need to be done with it, and I don’t think that this hit on all the necessary changes.”
Alexander said a recent study showed that the Town of Hempstead had 6,000 accidents involving pedestrians last year.
“There’s a need in the area,” he said, “and we can do better.”
